Monday, May 4, 2015

Teen Geek and my need to read

books that just came in the mail

Our local library offers a wonderful service on Saturdays called Teen Geek. Folks are invited to come to the library with any sort of device - laptop, tablet, smart phone, etc. - about which they have questions. Or in my case, they just need someone approximately 1/3 their age to tell them how to use something they got as a gift. Yep, that's me - technologically challenged.I broke my Kindle back in early November when I dropped it on the kitchen floor. Tim replaced it with one of those tablet thingies that does a whole lot more than download ebooks. Okay, I admit I was a little intimidated which is why it sat in its box until about two weeks ago when I decided the Teen Geek was going to show me the way. After insisting he couldn't make fun of me for not knowing how to use it and being a little afraid of it, he smiled and made magic happen. That might sound a smidge dramatic, but that's how I look at it.And I've been reading like crazy since. In the last two weeks, I've read actual books and ebooks like it was my job. (If only!) I read all four Kate Atkinson books about ex-cop-turned-private-investigator-turned-civilian Jackson Brodie. I watched season 1 of Case Histories a few years back, and once I stopped seeing Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy of the Harry Potter movies, I was hooked. The books are a little gritty at times, but I love me an English cop drama. (Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn, is a favorite. I love how she calls everyone "pet." Perhaps I should read those books too. Hmm.)I read the first book in the Hunger Games series. I know, I know....I'm only years behind the trend on that one. I have seen the movies at least.I read another in the Flavia de Luce mystery series - The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley. I stinking love these books! I have a suspicion these will be a reread in a few years' time. If you haven't read them, and you're a fan of English mysteries, go get them! Borrow them, download them. I'm currently rereading Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy in anticipation of seeing the movie with Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba. I love the late 90s production with Nathanial Parker as Farmer Oak and Paloma Baeza as Bathsheba! I have a copy on VHS, PBS nerd that I am. Good gravy, how boring would life be if we couldn't lose ourselves in books now and again?

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it. – Oscar Wilde